Dams

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Duflo, Esther; Pande, Rohini
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Harvard University
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/qjec.122.2.601
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 601-646
• 关键词: institutions

摘要

This paper studies the productivity and distributional effects of large irrigation dams in India. Our instrumental variable estimates exploit the fact that river gradient affects a district's suitability for dams. In districts located downstream from a dam, agricultural production increases, and vulnerability to rainfall shocks declines. In contrast, agricultural production shows an insignificant increase in the district where the dam is located but its volatility increases. Rural poverty declines in downstream districts but increases in the district where the dam is built, suggesting that neither markets nor state institutions have alleviated the adverse distributional impacts of dam construction.